Politics

This essay, "Starting Points," by Tricycle's Features Editor Andrew Cooper, first appeared in Turning Wheel in 1993. Cooper uses the two-year anniversary of the beating of Rodney King as his own starting point to explore the birthplaces of racism and how to approach the predominant whiteness of American Buddhist communities. "Starting Points" reminds us of the first question that we must ask ourselves in the process of making our sanghas more inclusive: Where do we start? Though the essay is almost two decades old, it's a question that in many ways, we're still asking.
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Rick Heller, editor of the online magazine The New Humanism, self-identified secular Buddhist, and Occupy Boston activist, recently released the eBook, Occupy the Moment: A Mindful Path to a New Economy. It combines Buddhist teachings with neuroscience to frame a discussion of mindful activism and the Occupy movement. Heller specifically focuses on the three poisons—greed, hatred, and delusion—and how an understanding of all of them, and in particular, greed, can shape how we go about changing society for the better.
From Occupy the Moment's introduction:
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Václav Havel (1936 – 2011)Václav Havel was a leader who brought his deep moral, spiritual, and intellectual concerns to bear in the realm of politics. In an article entitled "To Uphold the World," the author Bruce Rich quoted Havel as follows.
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Barbara O'Brien's post on Tuesday, "Deep Honesty," made me think about all of honesty's different forms: honesty as a precept, honesty as a worldview, honesty as a tool for empowerment...and its less welcome forms too, like honesty as an unwelcome guest knocking on your door in the middle of the night when you're not quite ready to receive it. On all of these O'Brien writes,
Speaking truth comes from a practice of truthfulness, or deep honesty. One of the things I first appreciated about Zen practice is that it requires self-honesty. Whatever shtick has gotten you through life is revealed to be a hindrance instead of a crutch, and the myriad little lies and rationalizations we tell ourselves about ourselves fall away. (And they're still falling away.)
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Occupy Faith NYC is a coalition of over 100 religious leaders from around New York that support the Occupy Wall Street movement. Last night they held a press conference at Judson Memorial Church near Washington Square to announce that five churches will open their doors for dislocated occupiers following the police raid at Zuccotti Park.Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi, a Theravada Buddhist monk and member of Occupy Faith, delivered an eloquent endorsement of the Occupy movement. Here's a short clip of his speech, in which he compares our current global situation to a man driving a car towards a cliff.For more read Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi's "The Need of the Hour" from the Fall 2011 issue of Tricycle.
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For the next installment of Tricycle's Q&A's with Buddhist bloggers (check out our previous ones with Kyle Lovett, Justin Whitaker and Waylon Lewis), we're bringing you nine-year blogging veteran and Soto Zen practitioner Barbara O'Brien. The Tricycle community might know her from About.com's Buddhism page, but she has also been running The Mahablog, her personal politics blog, since 2002.
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